Carol Berg

"How much must one pay for an hour of youthful folly? The Pureblood Registry accused Lucian de Remeni-Masson of "unseemly involvement with ordinaries," which meant only that he spoke with a young woman not of his own kind, allowed her to see his face unmasked, worked a bit of magic for her .... After that one mistake, Lucian's grandsire excised half his magic and savage Harrowers massacred his family. Now the Registry has contracted his art to a common coroner. His extraordinary gift for portraiture is restricted to dead ordinaries--beggars or starvelings hauled from the streets. But sketching the truth of dead men's souls brings unforeseen consequences. Sensations not his own. Truths he cannot possibly know and dares not believe. The coroner calls him a cheat and says he is trying to weasel out of a humiliating contract. The Registry will call him mad--and mad sorcerers are very dangerous..."--

In Avonar, Gerick investigates the ancient king D'Arnath's own daughter, held captive by the Lords of Zhev'Na for a thousand years-or so she claims. Entangled in bonds of love, family, and secrecy, Gerick unravels the mysteries of ancient kings, ancient evil-and the dreadful truth of his own destiny.

"Brutal imprisonment has broken Aidan McAllister. His celebrated voice is silent. His hands ruined. His music is destroyed, and with it the visions he once gave a kingdom ravaged by dragon war. The god who nurtured his talent since boyhood has abandoned him. All he wants to do is hide. But no one ever told Aidan his crime. And when pursuers threaten to throw him back in the prison he's just left, he's driven to discover the truth, risking his hard-bought freedom to unlock the mind of his god and the heart of his enemy"--Back cover.

In a kingdom on the verge of a grand renaissance, where natural science has supplanted failing sorcery, someone aims to revive a savage rivalry . . . For Portier de Savin-Duplais, failed student of magic, sorcery’s decline into ambiguity and cheap illusion is but a culmination of life’s bitter disappointments. Reduced to tending the library at Sabria’s last collegia magica, he fights off despair with scholarship. But when the King of Sabria charges him to investigate an attempted murder that has disturbing magical resonances, Portier believes his dreams of a greater destiny might at last be fulfilled. As the king’s new agente confide, Portier – much to his dismay – is partnered with the popinjay Ilario de Sylvae, the laughingstock of Sabria’s court. Then the need to infiltrate a magical cabal leads Portier to Dante, a brooding, brilliant young sorcerer whose heretical ideas and penchant for violence threaten to expose the investigation before it’s even begun. But in an ever-shifting landscape of murders, betrayals, old secrets, and unholy sorcery, the three agentes will be forces to test the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine. (from the back cover)

Every advanced society in the galaxy relies on the technology of the Protheans, an ancient species that vanished fifty thousand years ago. After discovering a cache of Prothean technology on Mars in 2148, humanity is spreading to the stars; the newest interstellar species, struggling to carve out its place in the greater galactic community.On the edge of colonized space, ship commander and Alliance war hero David Anderson investigates the remains of a top secret military research station; smoking ruins littered with bodies and unanswered questions. Who attacked this post and for what purpose? And where is Kahlee Sanders, the young scientist who mysteriously vanished from the base--hours before her colleagues were slaughtered?Sanders is now the prime suspect, but finding her creates more problems for Anderson than it solves. Partnered with a rogue alien agent he can't trust and pursued by an assassin he can't escape, Anderson battles impossible odds on uncharted worlds to uncover a sinister conspiracy . . . one he won't live to tell about. Or so the enemy thinks.From the Paperback edition.

The evil Lords of Zhev'Na kept Gerick captive for months. Although his parents rescued him, he remains tormented by his experience-and mistrusted even by those who love him. Accused of treason, Gerick flees and takes refuge in a magical realm full of outcasts, where he will discover how to use his own magical talent-soul weaving-to save his people from Zhev'Na.

Magic is forbidden throughout the Four Realms. For decades, sorcerers and those associating with them were hunted to near extinction.But Seri, a Leiran noblewoman living in exile, is no stranger to defying the unjust laws of her land. She is sheltering a wanted fugitive who possesses unusual abilities-a fugitive with the fate of the realms in his hands...

For ten years, the noblewoman Seriana lived in exile, believing her husband Karon was dead, executed for practicing sorcery. But now she learns his soul has been anchored to this world by magic. He has been restored to life-though his memories of Seri are gone. When Seri's nephew is kidnapped-and a dark family secret comes to light-the two strangers will have to join together to defeat the evil Lords of Zhev'Na, who want to destroy both this world and the parallel magic realm that lies beyond.

Anne de Vernase rejoices that she has no talent for magic. Her father's pursuit of depraved sorcery has left her family in ruins, and he remains at large, convicted of treason and murder by Anne's own testimony. Now the tutors at Collegia Seravain inform her that her gifted younger sister has died in a magical accident. It seems but life's final mockery that cool, distant Portier de Savin-Duplais, the librarian turned royal prosecutor, arrives with the news that the king intends to barter her hand in marriage. Anne quickly recognizes that the summoning carries implications far beyond a bleak personal future. Merona, the royal city, is beset by plagues of rats and birds and mysterious sinkholes that swallow light and collapse buildings. Whispers of hauntings and illicit necromancy swirl about Dante, the queen's volatile sorcerer. And a murder in the queen's inner circle convinces Anne that her sister's death wasn't accidental. Unable to trust anyone, Anne, who is devoted to science and reason, must take on her sister's magical legacy to discover the truth, and thrust herself into a centuries-old struggle that could forever alter the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine.--From book cover.

In the third novel of the Rai-Kirah epic saga, Seyonne, the slave-turned-soldier of the acclaimed "Revelation" and "Transformation, " returns to face the demon inside of his soul. When he journeys across the borders of the world to confront his own haunted dreams, Seyonne discovers he will become all that he ever feared.

Anne de Vernase rejoices that she has no talent for magic. Her father's pursuit of depraved sorcery has left her family in ruins, and he remains at large, convicted of treason and murder by Anne's own testimony. Now the tutors at Collegia Seravain inform her that her gifted younger sister has died in a magical accident. It seems but life's final mockery that cool, distant Portier de Savin-Duplais, the librarian turned royal prosecutor, arrives with the news that the king intends to barter her hand in marriage. Anne quickly recognizes that the summoning carries implications far beyond a bleak personal future. Merona, the royal city, is beset by plagues of rats and birds and mysterious sinkholes that swallow light and collapse buildings. Whispers of hauntings and illicit necromancy swirl about Dante, the queen's volatile sorcerer. And a murder in the queen's inner circle convinces Anne that her sister's death wasn't accidental. Unable to trust anyone, Anne, who is devoted to science and reason, must take on her sister's magical legacy to discover the truth, and thrust herself into a centuries-old struggle that could forever alter the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine.--From book cover.

As the land of Navronne sinks deeper into civil war and perilous winter, everyone wants to get their hands on the rebellious sorcerer Valen-a murderous priestess, a prince who steals dead men's eyes, and even the Danae guardians, whose magic nurtures the earth and whose attention could prove the most costly of all.Addicted to an enchantment that turns pain into pleasure-and bound by oaths he refuses to abandon-Valen risks body and soul to rescue one child, seek justice for another, and bring the dying land its rightful king. Yet no one is who they seem, and Valen's search for healing grace leads him from Harrower dungeons to alien shores. Only at the heart of the world does he discover the glorious, terrible price of the land's redemption-and his own.